A longish clip. But containing excellent information.
Modern life is very hostile to our precious friendly bacteria. I very much endorse regularly taking pro-biotic supplementation. In the blog ‘How to have healthy gut flora‘ I mention that 1 pill from my pot of probiotics contains 15 billion live organisms. This is the equivalent of 20 pots of yoghurt.
That said, yoghurt is a source of good bacteria – but for it to really beneficial commercial fruit yoghurts are best avoided since they are laden with sugar and/or artificial sweeteners and preservatives. Bad bacteria really party in the presence of sugar. So if you do eat yoghurt, then buy Full Fat Greek Yoghurt and add the fruit yourself. All preferably organic.
Fermented products such as Miso are also good sources of good bacteria. Before modern methods of preserving foods like canning and freezing were invented, vegetables were preserved through the process of lacto-fermentation. This used lactobacilli found on the surface of living things, especially plants growing near the soil. Essentially it means the vegetable is preserved in lactic acid. This way of preserving vegetables makes them not only a good source of good biotics, but also more digestible and nutritious. Western alternatives are sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers or pickled onions.
However before rushing off to the shops, modern pickled onions, for example, are quite a different thing, being preserved in vinegar. If you want to have a go at lacto-fermentation I recommend buying Sally Fallon’s book, “Nourishing Traditions” in which there is a whole chapter of recipes.